Spider secrets.In what sounds like a scene from Jurassic Park, a scientist has discovered 20-million-year-old droplets of spider blood. The droplets--and the spider that shed them--are preserved in amber (hardened tree sap, or resin resin, any of a class of amorphous solids or semisolids. Resins are found in nature and are chiefly of vegetable origin. They are typically light yellow to dark brown in color; tasteless; odorless or faintly aromatic; translucent or transparent; brittle, fracturing ). This is the first blood found in an amber fossil (trace of an ancient organism). "What's even more exciting is that the shape and position of the blood droplets show what happened to the spider when it became entombed Entombed, or entomb, may refer to:
n. The branch of metaphysics that deals with the nature of being. on·tol  o·gist n. who studies fossils at the University of Manchester The University of Manchester is a university located in Manchester, England. With over 40,000 students studying 500 academic programmes, more than 10,000 staff and an annual income of nearly £600 million it is the largest single-site University in the United Kingdom and receives in
England.
Penney believes that the spider was climbing a tree when a stream of resin struck it. The stream killed the spider and knocked off several of its legs. Then, resin covered the spider and blood from its broken legs. As the resin hardened, it protected the remains from decay. |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion